You are pregnant, healthy and hearing mixed messages: Minister of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is not a scientist or doctor, Says you don’t need The Covid vaccine, but experts in the control and protection centers high -risk group of people who should receive amplifiers. Science is on the side of the shots.
Pregnant women who arrested COVID-19 were more likely to become seriously ill and hospitalized by non-pregnant women of the same age and demographic elements, especially early in the Covid pandemic.
A meta-analysis Of the 435 studies, she found that pregnant and recently pregnant women infected with the Covid virus were more likely to end up in intensive care units, being in invasive ventilation and dying from women who were not pregnant but had a similar health profile. This was before the Covid vaccines were available.
Neil silvermanProfessor of Clinic of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Director of Infectious Diseases in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA’s Medical School, said he continues to see more bad results in pregnant patients with Covid. The danger of serious Covid was ranging as new variations emerged and vaccinations became available, Silverman said, but the threat still makes sense. “Regardless of what politics is saying, science is science and we know that, objectively, pregnant patients are at a significantly increased risk of having complications,” Silverman said.
A request for commentary on scientific literature that supports COVID vaccination for pregnant women sent to the HHS Public Affairs Office has caused an unnamed email -related email. The office did not respond when asked for a comment in the record.
Kennedy, a long-term anti-invitation activist before joining Trump’s administration, announced on May 27 that Covid vaccines will be removed from the CDC immune timetable for healthy pregnant women and healthy children. Its announcement, which was made in a video posted on the social media platform, CDC employees with blind CDC And bypass the established, scientific processes of the Agency to add and remove the shootings from its recommended programs, Washington Post reported.
There is still very unknown about how Covid affects a pregnant person. The normal relationship between Covid infections and mothers and embryos at different stages of pregnancy is complicated, she said Angela rasmussenAn Iologos at the University of Saskatchewan.
The increased risk for pregnant patients comes in part because pregnancy changes the immune system, Rasmussen said.
“There is a natural immune suppression so that the mother’s body does not attack the growing fetus,” Rasmussen said. “While the mother still has a functional immune system, does not work in full capacity.”
Pregnant patients are more likely to get sick and have tougher time to fight than any infection as a result.
In addition to changing the way the immune system works, the pregnant woman also makes women five times more likely to have blood clots. This risk is increasing if contracts, Covid said, he said Sallie PermarPresident of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine.
The Covid virus can affect vascular endothelium -especially cells that align blood vessels and help blood flow, Rasmussen said. In a healthy person, endothelium helps prevent blood clots by producing chemicals that modify the vascular system to keep it in operation. In a person who is infected by the Covid virus, balance is rejected and disturbed by the production of these molecules, which research shows can lead to blood clots or other blood disorders.
Permar said these clots can be particularly dangerous for both pregnant women and embryos. Inflammation and blood clots on the placenta could be linked to an increased risk of mortality, especially by Some Covid variantsAccording to studies published in large medical journals as well as by the CDC.
When the placenta is inflammatory, it is more difficult for oxygen and nutrients that carry blood to reach the growing baby, he said Mary PrahlAssociate Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical School of the University of California-Sen Francisco.
“If something interrupts these functions – it contained either coagulation or differences in the way the blood flows – this will really affect the way the placenta works and is able to allow the fetus to grow and develop properly,” he said.
It makes sense to see the results of Covid on the placenta, Silverman said. “The placenta is nothing more than a super-dedicated blood vessel collection, so it’s like a magnetic target for the virus.”
The blood vessels on the placenta are smaller and can be easier than the mother’s circulatory system, he said.
Permar said recent evidence shows that pregnant women who are sick with Covid still have a higher risk of pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia, premature birth and miscarriage, even with existing immunity from previous infection or vaccination. Covid, she said, can still land women in the hospital with pregnancy complications.
Prahl said the relationship between Stillbirth and Covid can change given the immunity that many people have developed by vaccination or previous infection. It is an area in which he would like to see more research.
Already exists strong evidence That both mRNA-based vaccines and non-MRNA Covid are safe for pregnant women.
Prahl co-author of a young man, early Study that did not find unfavorable results And he showed that the protection of antibodies continued for both the mother and the baby after birth. “What we have learned very quickly is that pregnant people want answers and many of them want to be involved in the research,” he said. Subsequent studies, including one published in Nature Medicine magazine showing that taking amplifier during pregnancy Cut newborn hospitalizations During the first four months of life, she supported the findings of her team.
Prahl expects more information available to support the benefits of mothers receiving COVID amplifier during pregnancy.
“I can say, somehow behind the scenes. I see a lot of these preliminary data,” he said.
He blames the delay in partly in the escalation of the Biden government by the federal effort to monitor Covid. “Many of the surveillance of these data were pulled back,” he said. Trump’s administration is Further cutting money used to monitor Covid.
But because vaccines give an immune system of a pregnant woman, increasing elimination antibodies, the Iologist Rasmussen is convinced that acquiring one while the pregnant woman makes it less likely that a pregnant woman will end up in the hospital if she gets Covid.
“It will protect the pregnant woman from a more serious illness,” he said.
Covid vaccine, while the pregnant woman also helps protect newborn after birth. Pregnant women who are vaccinated to pass this protection to their young babies, who cannot take their own shots until they are at least six months.
According to the data Released by CDC in 2024, almost 90 % of babies who had to be hospitalized with Covid had mothers who I didn’t get the vaccine While they were pregnant.
Just in April 2024, the study showed that babies too young to be vaccinated had the highest COVID hospitalization rate of any age group except people 75 and over.
The Trump’s administration’s decision to remove the Covid vaccine from the list of shots recommended for pregnant women means that insurance companies can no longer cover it. Pregnant women who want to get it anyway may have to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket.
“I do not want to be this doctor who simply says,” Well, it is really important, you have to vaccinate yourself and your children, no matter what, even if you have to pay for it out of pocket “, because they all have its own priorities and budgetary concerns,” “I can’t tell a family that the vaccine is more important than feeding their children.”
But he and his colleagues will continue to advise pregnant women to try to take the plans anyway.
“Newborns will be completely naive in exposure to Covid,” he said. “Vaccination of pregnant women to protect their newborns is still a valid reason for this effort to continue.”
This article appeared for the first time Health News KFF And it is republished here with a Creative Commons license.
Health News KFF It is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of the key operating programs in KFF-an independent source of research on health policy, votes and journalism. Learn more about Kff.
